Herlema Owens has worked on some of the biggest construction projects in Queens - the Jackie Robinson Parkway, Shea Stadium, and AirTrain JFK - but her next project may be the most demanding of all. Owens had founded a group, called the Association of Women Construction Workers in America (A.W.C.W.A.), to link together female workers in the industry.
“It’s important to have this Association of Women Construction Workers in America; we are able to act as a voice for women who so often can not speak up for themselves,” Owens said, explaining that the new group will work with unions and employers to protect and promote the specific needs of women in the industry.
The A.W.C.W.A. is first preparing to offer low-cost or free health insurance for members and next on the agenda is to solidify relationships with savings and lending institutions to help members build nest eggs and remain financially stable when they are out of work.
Owens has also envisioned that the organization will step in to protect members when a dispute arises with a supervisor.
“If you are insured and financially stable, you are in a better position to act on things that are wrong,” she said.
“You are not supposed to have discrimination or harassment on the job site,” Owens said. “But when you point it out, they [employers] lay you off with no resources.”
Owens said that she has experienced this reality herself when she was told to pack her bags at her last job after reporting a foreman who cursed at her.
“This organization is that voice to be able to speak out against all that is unjust,” she said.
In the more distant future, the group hopes to offer grants and scholarships to encourage female workers to enhance their careers in the mostly male-dominated field.
“When I first started, I was probably the only woman on any job site that I worked,” Owens said. “I also did not see any black men, so at the time, I was really a token employee.”
Before becoming a construction worker, Owens, a life-long native of Jamaica, Queens had been studying to be a hair stylist, when she met a woman in school whose family was at the head of a coalition of African American construction workers in the Bronx.
“As a single parent I thought it was a great opportunity,” she said, explaining that the $18.50 an hour wage and the variety of work enticed her to switch fields from fashion and beauty. For her first job, Owens traded her smock for a hard hat and worked on the sewer and sanitation lines for Co-Op City in the Bronx.
“It opened my mind to a brand new industry that I had never thought about as a job for women,” she said.
From there, Owens’ resume grew to positions on the borough’s biggest jobs. However, the work that stands out the most for her was the four years she spent working on the JFK AirTrain, dealing with traffic control and pedestrian safety issues surrounding the construction.
“[The AirTrain] was in the center of my community. It was the state of a whole new era in the community,” she said, explaining the economic and developmental impact the train to and from the airport had on the surrounding neighborhoods.
For another job - working on then Interboro Parkway, later renamed the Jackie Robinson Parkway - Owens served as the foreman for a group of women, one of the only times she has worked with a group of females over the years.
Throughout her various jobs, her kids - Theodore, Sherrise, and Lanta - provided unconditional support and encouragement for their mother. “My kids, they grew up with it,” she said.
Now, with four grandchildren, and a fifth on the way, along with her new position in the A.W.C.W.A., Owens cannot imagine ever leaving construction.
“I stayed in the industry so long because of the change, because of the money, and because of the work, the people, and the atmosphere,” she said. “I love construction, and I always found ways to make it work for me.”
